Deathstalker 05 - Deathstalker Destiny

But don't take too long to come up with something, Deathstalker, d'Ark; every minute we buy for you is being paid with human lives and suffering.
    "But you're not alone. Captain Silence and the Dauntless should be there with you by now. Try to forget old enmities, Deathstalker. Humanity is in dire need of help, and we don't much care where it comes from."
    The signal suddenly became blurred and distorted, Jenny Psycho looking sharply back over her shoulder at something offscreen. For a moment, Owen and Hazel could clearly hear the horrid, never-ending scream of the Recreated in the background, and then the signal was shut down from the other end. Owen shuddered briefly, unnerved by the very sound. He would have liked to say something
    comforting to Jenny, but he had no idea what. What can you say when the fate of your whole species lies in your hands, and you don't have one damned clue what to do? Owen chewed the inside of his cheek, scowling thoughtfully. He hadn't come into the Darkvoid again to fight Humanity's last battle; he'd returned to the Wolfling World to deal with old, unfinished business. The Madness Maze was now back, apparently, and the baby in the crystal at the heart of the Maze was waking up. Since the last time he was awake he put out a thousand suns in a moment, destroyed billions of lives, and created the Darkvoid, Owen felt he had a responsibility to return, and do what he could. If only because, as Giles's clone, the baby was Family.
    But now Silence and the Dauntless were on their way too, and that complicated things. Owen had no doubt as to why the good Captain had been sent into the Darkvoid again. Parliament wanted that legendary weapon, the Darkvoid Device, to use against the Recreated. An obvious, if desperate, gamble. But Parliament and Silence had no way of knowing the Device was just a baby, beyond any hope of manipulation or control. The one time Giles had tried to use the baby's powers, to deal with a few rebel planets, he had become responsible for the greatest case of murder in human history. Who knew what the baby might do, if he was allowed to wake again…
    "Well?" said Hazel, not liking the silence or the look on Owen's face. "Are we going to contact the Dauntless?"
    "Not just yet, I think," said Owen. "I think we need to get down there first, and appraise the situation, before Silence and his people arrive to confuse the hell out of things. I mean, all we know is what the Wolfling told us. He could be mistaken. Or lying. Or…"
    "Or?"
    "Precisely. I'll move us into a suitable low orbit, where we'll be less easily detected. You try again to raise the Wolfling on the comm."
    Hazel shrugged, and turned back to the comm panels. She hadn't forgotten the last time Silence came to the Wolfling World, in pursuit of the price on their heads, and ended up destroying the Madness Maze, as well as trying to kill her and the other Maze people. They'd all made a kind of peace over Lionstone's body, in the Hell she'd made of her Court, but that had been politics, nothing more, and they'd all been careful to maintain a respectful distance, ever since.
    Some wounds and divisions can only be healed by time. Lots of it.
    Owen moved the Sunstrider III into low orbit, his mind meshing easily with the ship's computer systems through his comm link, operating the navigation systems directly by his thoughts. When Moon rebuilt the Sunstrider III around the previous ship's stardrive, he hadn't been able to resist bringing the computers up to his own more-than-human standards. Once, Owen would have needed an AI to interface between his thoughts and the computers, to avoid unfortunate foul-ups through drifting attention, but a more disciplined mind was only one of the changes the Maze continued to work in him. He still missed Oz, though.
    He settled the ship into a suitable orbit, raised all the shields, carefully disengaged his mind from the computers, and turned to Hazel. She'd pushed her chair back from the comm panels, and was shaking her head angrily. She glared at Owen and folded her arms sulkily across her chest.
    "He must be able to hear us, but he's not answering. If I put any more power into the comm signal, the planet would start to melt. Maybe he's mad at us for not getting here sooner. Hell, maybe the baby woke up and disappeared him. We've no way of knowing what's going on down there!"
    "No," said Owen slowly. "I think we'd know if the baby was awake. Either we'd feel it… or the universe